Someone brought the following list to my attention today and I immediately recognized myself from the description in #1, and in some of the following numbers. I found the list to be very interesting. I have highlighted the ones I recognized as myself.
Summary
15 Styles of Distorted Thinking
1. Filtering: You take the negative details and magnify them while filtering out all positive aspects of a situation.
2. Polarized Thinking: Things are back or white, good or bad. You have to be perfect or you're a failure. There is no middle ground.
3.Overgeneralization: You come to a general conclusion based on a single incident or piece of evidence. If something bad happens once, you expect it to happen over and over again.
4. Mind Reading: Without their saying so, you know what people are feeling and why they act the way they do. In particular, you are able to Divine how people are feeling toward you.
5.Catastrophizing: You expect disaster. You notice or hear about a problem and start 'what ifs:' What if tragedy strikes? What if it happens to you?
6. Personalization: Thinking that everything people do or say is some kind of reaction to you. You also compare yourself to others, trying to determine who is smarter, better looking, etc.
7. Control Fallacies: If you feel externally controlled, you see yourself as helpless, a victim of fate. The fallacy of internal control has you responsible for the pain and happiness of everyone around you.
8. Fallacy of Fairness: You fell resentful because you think you know what's fair but other people won't agree with you.
9. Blaming: You hold other people responsible for your pain, or take the other tack and blame yourself for every problem or reversal.
10. Shoulds: You have a list of ironclad rules about how you and other people should act. People who break the rules anger you and you feel guilty if you violate the rules. Find yourself saying "I should..."
11. Emotional Reasoning: You believe that what you feel must be true--automatically. If you feel stupid and boring, then you must be stupid and boring.
12. Fallacy of change: You expect that other people will change to suit you if you just pressure or cajole them enough. You need to change people because your hopes for happiness seem to depend entirely on them.
13. Global Labeling: You generalize one or two qualities into a negative global judgement.
14. Being Right: You are continually on trial to prove that your opinions and actions are correct. Being wrong is unthinkable and you will go to any length to demonstrate your rightness.
15. Heaven's Reward Fallacy: You expect all your sacrifice and self-denial to pay off, as if there were someone keeping score. You feel bitter when the reward doesn't come.
So, what is the point; it's just a list right? Well they say the first step in fixing something is to know what's wrong with it...or something like that. I recognize not just the ways of thinking that I use, but also ones that my brother, parents, bosses, coworkers, friends and family use as well. Does that mean there is something wrong with all of us? Probably:) Just kidding. No, it just got me thinking how many of these are considered character traits Just how many are just personality and how many are harmful patterns of thinking that affect our everyday relationships and how we interact with others?
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